This fun “open house style” mixer is open to all current and prospective Triton members, and informally serves as the Club’s annual meeting. Join the Club. Get psyched for the 2011 Triton training program and area races. Bring your questions, suggestions, and other ideas. Additionally, if you are interested in volunteering to serve the Club in some capacity, please bring it on. Support the Club. Train, race and volunteer. We hope to see you at Sola Café!

Bozeman Triathlon Club (Bozeman Tritons)
Over 50-members strong and now entering its fifth season in 2011, the Bozeman Triathlon Club is an official USA Triathlon Club, a first for Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley region. The Club welcomes athletes of all ages and abilities to this growing sport and healthy lifestyle. According to USA Triathlon, no matter what level of experience, from newbie to pro, your triathlon experience will be enhanced by joining a USAT club. Members will train smarter, harder and have more fun with people of a like mind. USAT Clubs are where fun happens, where you can get together to train and party. USAT actively promotes clubs. www.bozemantritons.org.

USA Triathlon (USAT)Fueling the Multisport Lifestyle
USA Triathlon is the sanctioning authority for more than 3,000 diverse events, ranging from grassroots to high-profile races nationwide. The organization works to create interest and participation in a variety of programs, including camps, clinics, races and educational opportunities. USA Triathlon’s 130,000-strong membership is comprised of athletes of all ages, coaches, officials, parents and fans striving to strengthen multisport. Triathlon participation in the United States is at an all-time high, following unprecedented growth over the past decade. USA Triathlon can easily track the surge through its membership numbers, which approached 135,000 annual members in June 2010. To put that into perspective, annual membership hovered between 15,000 and 21,000 from 1993-2000. www.usatriathlon.org.

Club Wolverine recently trained at the USA Olympic Training Center. As part of their training regimen, Head Coach Mike Bottom drilled his swimmers on a sequence of exercises designed to improve their freestyle form and power. This excellent, progressive series of freestyle drills starts with a proper high elbow catch, adds a body roll and shoulder rotation, and ends on shoulder driven freestyle, with additional emphasis on a high kick and hand speed. Practice these swim drills, and you could be swimming like former Club Wolverine swimmer Michael Phelps! Right on.

Open water swimming at the pond is right around the corner. Hooaaaaah! As we wait for the water temperatures to warm, here are a few swim technique tips to practice at the pool from Ironman Dave Scott.

As a reminder, the Bozeman Masters Swim Club (“BOZE”) will be offering open water swim sessions at the Pond every Monday and Wednesday evenings at 6:00 PM, beginning June 2nd, weather and water temperature dependent.

After years of informal, sporadically scheduled, hey let’s swim at the pond tomorrow! Open Water Swims at the East Gallatin Recreation Area and Hyalite Reservoir, the BOZE OWS program is now structured , representing an even greater commitment to this swim format, and to community triathletes and open water swimmers. There’s a pre-set Monday & Wednesday evening schedule, offering numerous triathlon swim and open water swim training sessions this summer.

For this inaugural year of the program, Tritons, local triathletes, and others may swim with the new, summer-long BOZE OWS program simply by joining United States Masters Swimming (“USMS”). No other separate BOZE membership fees are required.

USMS Memberships are available online for $32 at http://www.usms.org/reg/. Please list your Club affiliation as the Bozeman Masters Swim Club, and your Workout Group as None. The Club abbreviation is BOZE.

If interested, full memberships to the complete BOZE program, providing access and privileges to all BOZE swim training opportunities at the pools AND the pond, are separately available at www.bozemanmasters.org.

Let’s support this new BOZE OWS program, and this renewed commitment to triathlon swimming and open water swimming in our community!

As a final comment, with respect to the triathlon swim training and open water swimming experience and the visibility of this swim format at the Pond, for the near term, I personally would love to see permanent swim course buoys and an open water swim event during Sweet Pea weekend, on Sunday, the day after the Bozeman Classic. Call it a “broken” duathlon, too. Support the buzz. Chat up BOZE coaches, members, and others, and may be this ball will start rolling!

Special Olympics – 5/12, MSU. Unified Sports Triathlon program is now available on the Triton blog. Special Olympics volunteer meeting is set for this Thursday, 5/6. MSU Student Union Building, Ballroom D. 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM.

Bozeman May Swim Classic – 5/14-16, Bozeman Swim Center. Great time trial opportunity on Friday evening. 1500 meter freestyle. Other events, too! Entry form deadline is tomorrow.Entry form is available here – http://bit.ly/dkItyz.

Hey Tritons! Please take two minutes to complete this quick, six question survey. Your response is IMPORTANT to our triathlon training and open water swimming future at the Pond! I have added a few survey suggestions for members to consider below. If you would like, please feel free to copy and paste the suggestions, AND please feel free to have family members and friends respond, too. Hopefully, we can get a major league, viral-like response. Thanks, and have a terrific holiday weekend, train on, Art

Question 4.From the list of activities below, please select the one in which you would most likely participate.Suggestion:Check OTHER, and add “Triathlon Training, Triathlons, Open Water Swimming, and Open Water Swimming Competitions”.

Question 5.From the list below of possible “minor” improvements to the park, please rank them in order of importance to you.Suggestion:Check OTHER, and add “Priority #1 – Permanent open water swim buoys for the pond, planned and placed in a manner to provide a wide variety of precisely measured, long distance triathlon swim and open water swim courses. Priority #2 – Lifeguards.”

Question 6.From the list below of possible “major” improvements to the park, please rank them in order of importance to you.Suggestion:Check OTHER, and add “Priority #1 — Two or more, LARGE floating docks, placed mid-pond, separated by a precisely measured, long open water swim distance of approximately 200 meters-plus (as long as possible, depending on what distance is reasonably available) and connected by lane rope(s) or floating cable(s). Swimmers can swim between the docks and get coached/gather/rest/sun/etc at the platforms.”